Liquidity issues at the United Nations are often dismissed as a technical budgetary complication. But the reality is that funding shortfalls undermine collective global security.
The UN’s regular budget for peace and security, sustainable development and human rights promotion was cut roughly US$3.72 billion in 2025 to $3.45 billion in 2026, resulting in the elimination of nearly 2,900 posts worldwide.
The approved 2025-26 peacekeeping allocation of $5.38 billion included an estimated $2 billion shortfall due to unpaid assessed contributions. These reductions come at a time when global conflict levels are the highest since World War II.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, has warned that the liquidity crisis is already undermining mandate delivery, civilian protection and deterrence against violence.
Pakistan is among the largest and longest-serving troop contributors to UN peacekeeping. When a major contributor signals operational strain, it reflects systemic stress and not just diplomatic rhetoric.
Indeed, this is no longer a debate about bookkeeping. It is a test of whether collective security can function and survive without predictable financing.
Financing shock
Historically the UN’s largest financial contributor, Washington has accumulated arrears exceeding $2.2 billion.
The Trump administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in previously appropriated peacekeeping funds and signaled its intention to eliminate US peacekeeping contributions altogether in 2026, citing dissatisfaction with mission outcomes in Mali, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
US contributions are not discretionary donations; they are the backbone of peacekeeping’s operational model. When the largest contributor adopts an “a la carte” approach, predictability and credibility erode. Without reliable cash flow, mandate implementation becomes contingent and not assured.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, head of UN peace operations, has acknowledged that efficiency reforms cannot compensate for withheld financing. The shortfall in funds is already forcing troop repatriations, civilian staff freezes and reductions in aviation support.
At the same time, patrol frequency has declined, UN troop mobility has contracted and field presence has thinned. All in all, the lack of funding has reduced the UN’s stabilization capacity.
Across African missions, a mandated 15% expenditure cut is translating into roughly a 25% reduction in uniformed and civilian personnel, equivalent to 13,000 to 14,000 troops and police being withdrawn. The missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic are among the worst affected.
In eastern Congo and rural South Sudan, UN peacekeepers often constitute the only organized buffer between armed factions and vulnerable civilian populations. When these shrink, deterrence weakens as the protection of civilians depends on their presence and mobility.
Across the world, UN peacekeeper deployments monitor ceasefires, discourage opportunistic violence and create political breathing space for lasting solutions to conflicts. When patrol grids thin and reimbursements are delayed, operational credibility suffers.
Peacekeeping as strategic insurance
UN peacekeeping’s greatest successes are measured in the crises that do not erupt.
At roughly $5 billion to $6 billion annually, the entire UN peacekeeping budget represents a small fraction of global military expenditure, which exceeds $2 trillion per year. The cost comparison underscores a simple fact: prevention is cheaper than intervention.
UN peacekeeping operations pool resources multilaterally, operate with host-state consent, and enjoy international legitimacy. They create space for political dialogue, support the implementation of ceasefires and help rebuild conflict-broken national institutions.
For many fragile states, they provide stabilization capacity that would otherwise be impossible. In short, peacekeeping financing is not charity – it is strategic insurance against escalation and regional contagion.
For Asia, the liquidity crisis is not peripheral. Instability in Africa and the Middle East often reverberates through Indian Ocean sea lanes, Red Sea chokepoints and Gulf energy corridors that underpin Asian trade and growth.
Fragile states left unsupported can become hubs for arms trafficking, extremist networks and organized crime, with ripple effects across maritime trade routes and supply chains.
Asian economies are deeply integrated into these global logistics systems. Thus, a weakening of multilateral stabilization mechanisms in one region often disrupts commercial and energy security elsewhere.
If US retrenchment creates space for other powers to expand their financial and operational influence on peacekeeping structures, the balance of power inside the UN-led multilateral system will shift.
China is already the second-largest contributor to the UN’s budget and an increasingly significant troop contributor. Financial underwriting and strategic leverage are rarely separable in UN institutions.
Pakistan’s role illustrates the structural stakes. More than 250,000 Pakistani personnel have served in 48 UN missions across four continents, with 182 fatalities under the UN flag. Pakistan hosts one of the UN’s oldest missions and remains among the largest providers of uniformed peacekeepers.
When Ambassador Ahmad cautions that delayed funding disbursements and shrinking mandates could affect standby arrangements, rapid deployment capabilities and specialized units, he is describing growing systemic risk.
Troop-contributing countries rely on predictable reimbursement cycles to sustain equipment readiness and domestic political support. Persistent financial uncertainty could prompt major contributors to reassess the scale and sustainability of their deployments.
If that occurs, the UN risks losing not only capacity but credibility. Predictable financing underwrites morale, readiness and rapid response capability. Without it, UN deterrence weakens.
To be sure, peacekeeping reform is necessary. Mandate creep, bureaucratic inefficiencies and uneven performance warrant scrutiny. Yet reform achieved through abrupt fiscal contraction differs from that achieved through deliberate restructuring. A “slash and burn” approach weakens core capabilities before viable alternatives are established.
The shift toward slimmer, politically focused missions may be strategically sound. But without adequate funding, that transition risks becoming unmanaged retrenchment rather than calibrated, effective reform.
As resources shrink, prevention yields to reactive crisis management. And reactive intervention is invariably more costly — financially and strategically — than sustained early engagement.
Structural inflection point
The UN’s liquidity crisis poses a fundamental question: Is this a temporary funding shock, likely to pass when Donald Trump’s term is up, or the beginning of an irreversible downsizing of collective global security?
If financial commitments become subject to discretionary political calculation, the neutrality and legitimacy of UN peacekeeping erode. If the largest contributor (the US) steps back and others (China) do not step forward proportionately, the stabilization architecture contracts by default.
The choice confronting member states is not between spending and saving. It is between underwriting preventive stability and absorbing the costs of unmanaged conflict. Collective security has always depended on predictable burden-sharing. When that predictability weakens, so too does UN deterrence.
The UN’s cash crisis is therefore likely more than a short-term shortfall. Rather, it signals a possible moment of global reordering. If collective security becomes optional rather than obligatory, the multilateral system will not simply weaken – it will wither and erode, with destabilizing conflict spreading in its wake.
Saima Afzal is an independent and freelance researcher specializing in South Asian security, counter-terrorism, the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific region. She holds an M. Phil in peace and conflict studies from the National Defence University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
